I am teaching parts of the plant and one of the students drew a detailed picture of a the plant in his journal. As I pointed to the parts of the plant in his drawing, he told me the names of every part. He also drew a perfect image of the root of the plant. Yesterday he put together his art work of a plant all by himself. Cut the pieces out, glued them in the correct order and wrote his name perfectly on his art! After he put it together, he pointed to the tiny seeds inside of the plant and told me those are the seeds. He did all this independently. He remembered everything I was reading from the book Tiny Seeds by Eric Carle. He did so well that he decided to help the other kids in his group on how to put the plant together. "He said, Look Ms. T I am being kind. I am helping my friends in my learning group". It was so cute that I added a ball to the kindness jar. Even though at the PreK age children are active and their brains are running everywhere, they are actually listening and learning! 2nd- This one kid decided to draw a image of me because he was so thrilled at my hairdo. He drew my face and eyes and pointed to a few lines sticking up on the top of the face that he drew of me and told that's how my new hair do looks. Lol. Little kids are really amazed when a teacher walks in with something new about them. One proud PreK teacher!
Just found out one of the crummiest teachers I've ever met in my life just resigned from my school. Is it bad that the song "Ding Dong the witch is dead" entered my mind???
The principal with visitors in tow walked in on us today, they were playing socrative. The P asked what they were doing on their phones, laughing, having a great time. One kid said in no uncertain terms, we are revising what we learnt this week, like we do every week. P was well impressed. 5 minutes later, we were playing Kahoots on movies and food and fun stuff as a reward for a long week. Wouldn't have been such a good look if P came in 5 minutes later. Love good timing!
This started out as bad but turned good. We have a built in socialization time in our schedules. This means we rotate different kids twice a week into our room to play. So yesterday during this time everything was going great. The kids were playing nicely. Sometimes i join in certain groups just have a little fun. So I sitting in my chair trying to figure out which center to join and I see a little girl come out of the bathroom....... and then I see a little boy come out of the bathroom. I was freaked out. So I start questioning the kids. Well both of them English is a second language so we couldn't communicate so well. So I took them to their teacher and asked her to ask them why they were in the bathroom together. Turns out there was a spider in the sink and the little girl had asked the little boy to kill it. So he was being a gentleman and he killed it.
Nope, not hoping...it's a done deal. She'll be gone by next Friday. Just think of the worst teacher you've ever met, times it by 100 and you've got her!
I have 9 kids out for a Band competition, 6 away either sick, on holiday or at medical appointments, and I have several go to the Resource Room for math and literacy. During math today I had 14 students! We couldn't carry on with our regular programming, but it was a good opportunity to do some collaborative problem-solving activities.
There was a teacher at my school that when I first moved to this school she was my mentor and a "friend" One day my daughter was going through my phone she put this teacher's ring tone as the song that played when scary lady was on the bike. I didn't know that until this teacher called me one day. LOL
It was picture day at my practicum today and my 6th graders were done up all fancy and it was absolutely adorable seeing them all dressed up like that.
I have a first grade student who came into school with no reading or writing skills. Scored a zero on his entrance exam. He recently wrote me a story at the end of our word family unit that looked more like a paragraph than a story. I asked him if he wanted to be a writer and he said, "Yes, this is life changing. I will be everything. I will be Superman, Iron Man, Batman, a writer, a police officer, a singer, a dancer, I will play the guitar...I will be so busy as an adult."
I have a student who was just placed with a foster family. I knew him before and he was an angry child. He has been doing so much better. Today he told me "home is different, but a good different that makes me happy." I damn near cried.
Today I had lunch with two of my students from the satellite class. Everyone else either cut school or left early. We were supposed to have food delivered to the room but there was a ton of confusion, so I simply took them to the cafe in the basement of the community center and told them to order whatever they wanted. Don’t worry, school is reimbursing me. These two young women (two of three sisters) tend to keep to themselves, so sitting with them with my computer shut and with food on the table gave me the chance to just talk with them. The older sister is the most studious, and she has a chance to graduate as early as December. Now that she is pregnant with her second child at the age of twenty, she has the motivation to graduate, go to community college, and eventually open her own salon. The younger sister, from what I could gather, has suffered from multiple physical and mental chronic illnesses, which is why she is just starting her freshman year at the age of sixteen. She’s decided she either wants to be a lawyer or a police officer. She does NOT want to work for her sister. For the record, they both had the meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and cooked carrots. Their plates were almost cleaned by the end, although they younger sister ate around the potato skins. I had chicken salad with a side of fresh veggies (this cafe and the adjoining small grocery is sponsored and staffed by volunteers from the Mid-Ohio Food Bank). They took pictures of lunch and sent them to the sister who cut school. Poor kid. I swear, getting that half hour to just chat with these two was the highlight of my teaching week. They had no idea I was actually working on their transition plans and creating future curriculum for them both. I LOVE MY JOB!
I went to ISTE last year and attended a session on using the Breakout/Escape Room setup in the classroom. I finally did it with my kids last week as a math review/post-testing treat and we had a blast! When we were done, one of them said, "Wait, that was math?!" I teach special ed and one of my boys who really struggles with most academics showed a lot of leadership and was really good at taking their answers and figuring out how to use them to break the various codes. It was so fun seeing him in action. I have a first grader who successfully read the 25 sight words we've been focusing on for the last couple of months. He did a spontaneous dance around his chair, waving the list in the air. So adorable. He was really tough to engage at first so seeing him excited about learning was awesome.
I had a visit like that this week -- the P came in with a prospective student and family while all my students were working in groups, on their school iPads, making videos to send to their pen pals in another country (WL class). I tried to sound nonchalant like, oh yeah, we do this all the time...!
My student who has struggled with behavior since he was in Pre-k is now on medication. Totally new kid and totally new classroom dynamics. He becoming more and more independent. It's wonderful.
Got multiple job offers this year from other districts and private companies. So glad I took the alternate route to teaching and not the traditional route, for my situation anyway.
Retired now…ran into a former student She is now 24 yrs old and a recent college graduate. She mentioned it took her awhile but was determined. I remember her as sweet but with lots of family drama with new step mom. She is moving out of state and will be getting married next year.
I’m so glad school is out for the year. School board meeting went well and we broke ground at the new high school last Friday.
I'm REALLY excited for my state's Teacher Leadership Summit a week from today! I'm such a nerdy dork. I attended the last two virtually, so this will be my first in-person as well as my first as an official Lead Teacher at my school.
I just got a rise and hopefully from the next months i can finally start investing part of my income. I am checking few different financial advisors and so far this gofundme customer service was the most friendly and helpful. Any other recommendations for person who is absolutely green in investing?
